When You've Got Close Friends, Just Keep Going

In this episode of The Manhood Tribes Show, we wrap up our series on building close friendships for men. Host Don discusses the crucial difference between seasonal and lifelong friendships, providing strategic advice on cultivating meaningful, lasting relationships. 

Whether you're starting from scratch or aiming to deepen existing friendships, this episode offers practical tips on forming your 'tribe'—a group of 5-8 men who help each other become the best versions of themselves. 

We also introduce our 'How Manly Are You?' quiz and share exciting plans for our upcoming tribe-launch resource. Join us to discover how you can build and maintain these vital friendships.

00:00 Introduction: Lifelong Friendships
00:56 Manhood Quiz: How Manly Are You?
01:29 Welcome to the Manhood Tribe Show
01:43 The Importance of Male Friendships
03:13 Building Your Tribe: Practical Tips
04:35 Maintaining Your Tribe: Keeping It Going
05:04 Tribe Rhythm: Chisel, Challenge, Adventure
05:56 Avoiding Staleness: Keeping It Interesting
07:36 Long-Term Commitment: How Long Should a Tribe Last?
10:26 Pro Tips for a Successful Tribe
14:05 Advanced Chiseling Techniques
20:12 Balancing Intensity and Fun
22:22 Conclusion: The Value of a Tribe
23:11 Resource Announcement and Wrap-Up

Want to know how you measure up as a man? Take our free quiz, called How Manly Are You? and learn how you can get better at being a man. Download for free at manhoodtribes.com/manly.

Transcript

0:00

For guys, what makes the difference between a guy who has a close friend for a season and a guy who's a close friend for life. That's a different kind of friendship altogether. And when we think about building friends that we want to have be part of our tribe, We want to think more towards that lifelong end of the spectrum. Even if they don't end up being lifelong friends, we want to develop the kind of friendship where they could be. But to do that, we need to think strategically about how we build that friendship. Let's jump in and talk about that. On today's episode of the manhood tribe show.

Don Ross: 0:57

Guys want to know how you measure up as a man? I've got a great resource for you. It's called how manly are you? And it's a free quiz that you can take to figure out how you stack up against what it means to be a man. And when you take the quiz, you'll also get some free resources to help you figure out how you can get better as a man in the areas where you would like to grow. So go to manhoodtribes.com/manly to download your free. How manly are you quiz today? That's manhoodtribes.com/manly.

1:30

Okay guys, welcome to the manhood tribes show. My name is Don. I'm your host. And today we are going to be wrapping up our series on how to build close friendships. If you're a guy, chances are, you have very few, if any close friends in your life, that's just the way that. Male friendships go in our culture right now. It's very rare for most of us. But as we talk about here at manhood tribes, what it means to be an extraordinary man and how to become the best version of ourselves. We've been talking for the past several weeks about how necessary it is. That we as men really begin to cultivate again, the reality of close friendships in our lives. This is the way that men have lived throughout most of history. They have always lived in close knit troops and gangs and tribes and villages that have allowed them to know one another to fight for one another, to have each other's backs, to be part of each other's lives over the course of their whole lifetimes. And it's really only been in the last few centuries that we here in America and in the west have really gotten away from that style of living. But I don't know that we're the better off for it. As you look around at our culture and kind of all the markers of health for men. Everything is down. Everything is down for us as men. And so we need to try to do some things to help, right. The ship. And one of those things is that we need to learn again. To live in the context of close friendship with other guys. So this series has really been all about how to help us be able to do that. Whether you're starting from scratch with no friends at all, and trying to figure out how do I even go about finding some guys that I could be close friends with? To how you began to take friendships up a level, wherever you're beginning from, if you've just got casual friends or you've got guys that you've known for a while and been around, but you're not really talking about things of significance. This series has tried to give you some practical tips on how you can begin to level up those friendships, wherever they're coming from so that you can begin to approach the idea of developing a tribe. I tribe is going to be a group of, probably about five to eight guys who are going to challenge you and help you transform into being the best version of yourself. And here at manhood tribes, we call that an extraordinary man. That's the men that we have always wanted to beat. It's the men that we kind of internally are striving for, even if, at times on the outside, we kind of give up on it. But if we're going to get there, we've got to have those men around us who also want the same thing. And her going to help us get there and we're going to do the same for them. So, if you haven't listened to the past several episodes in the series, now it'd be a good time to catch up because today we're closing out the series. And what we really want to talk about is once you have built that tribe, once you have gotten things up and off the ground with a group of guys that you really want to develop these kinds of lasting quality of friendships with. What do you do to keep it going? How do you make sure that it's something that stays off the ground? That gets up and running and stays running. Because this is not easy. We've talked about the things that you're going to need to do as a tribe. Right? We covered our tribe rhythm, which is that three weeks of the month, you're going to participate in our chiseling activity. And then one week out of the month. When you meet, you're going to do some kind of a manhood challenge or at least plan your manhood challenges so that you can do them on your own over the course of the next month or so. So three weeks chisel, one week challenge, and then two to three times a year, you want to incorporate some kind of a tribe adventure. Okay. So those are the normal parts of a tribe, rhythm chisel challenge, adventure. But is that all there is to it. Is that all that a tribe ever does. And if so, like doesn't it get kind of stale? Like how do you keep it? Interesting. Do you ever like use new curriculum or find something else to study or to talk about, or, you know, to go through together? Like when you're meeting, if you're only ever doing those things, don't guys kind of get bored with that. Those are really good questions. And I will say that from my experience, it is possible. But it's not likely. The reason that it's not likely is because you're living your life. I guarantee you. That, when you think about your life, you know, that you're always going to have challenges. There are always going to be difficulties in your life. And as things come up in your life and in the lives of the other men and your tribe, there will always be room and opportunity to be able to address those things, to figure out how God is working in your life, to try to help you get better. And to then as a tribe challenge and hold one, another accountable towards growing in those areas. Areas. But after a while of doing that same thing over and over again, you might find that it can get a little bit, if not stale, at least it just become sort of like normal and commonplace. And you might need some things to kind of give you a little bit of an infusion of energy, something to kind of revive the interest of the group and keep guys moving along this rhythm of becoming the extraordinary men that we really do want to be. So to talk about that, I want to give you some ideas from my own experience of leading a tribe and being a part of a tribe that have helped us stay together for many years now. And to continue to enjoy one another's company and to get better at being mint. So first off, let me just address. How long do you keep a tribe going? Does the tribe just last for like 12 weeks or like a semester, or, you know, maybe for a year, if it's going really well. And I would say the answer is really two things you go for as long as you want to keep going. I think there is real benefit for men to develop the kinds of relationships that can last for a lifetime. Now look, I'm pragmatic about this as well. I understand not every friendship that you develop as a part of a tribe is going to last a lifetime. Not every tribe is going to get up and going and last for the rest of time. Right. I understand those kinds of things. But that's not to say that every relationship should look like that. But that we ought to be developing the kinds of relationships that could last for a lifetime. Life will not allow all of them to do so. And tribes will break up and disband for one reason or another overtime. But if you're developing those kinds of friendships that could last for a lifetime, you'll find there's ever more reason to stay together. And when you've been together with a group of men for years on end, the ability for you together as a group to know one another. To challenge one another to come alongside one another to support one another to push one another. And just honestly, to love one another. Grows tremendously over time. Not to mention that your ability to have fun together. Gets better the longer that you're together. Okay. So there are all the more reasons to want to try to create a tribe that is going to last. And you can go as long as you want to. Which I would say is the other reason is that. Uh, tribes should last, as long as it's working. And this is really what's critical. What do you do to keep a tribe working so that it actually is producing results? And when I'm talking about results, I'm talking about what we've said all along is that we want a tribe to help transform us. Uh, tribe is about a group of men around us who are challenging us to become the best versions of ourselves. So we all should be growing and moving towards that version of ourselves. And if we're not, then the tribe isn't working the way that it should. And at the same time I tried should be fun. These should be the guys that you just love spending time around, and you should do things together that are just for the sake of fun and enjoyment, both of each other, and of just life in general. And as long as those things are happening, as long as there is real challenge, real growth, real fun. Then there's no reason to think that a tribe can't keep working for as long as you want it to. But what do you do to be able to make that happen? Let me give you some pro tips of things that I've experienced with my tribe and have seen with other tribes that have helped them be able to last and help the relationships within those tribes to be able to continue. One I would say is that for the first year of being a part of a tribe, you really should just try to stick to the basic rhythm. Three weeks on one week off chisel and challenge adventure, two to three times during that first year. If you can maintain that rhythm with a group of guys of about five to eight guys in the group. Then you're going to find that. Every guy in the group is getting, get an opportunity to be chiseled about once every two months or so. Which is kind of just the right amount of time to deal with something significant in your life. And then to be able to come back around to you in a few months when you've either got something new to deal with, or you've made some progress in that existing area, and now need to address it from a new angle or a new layer. So it's just kind of the right amount of time to give every guy in the group, an opportunity to be chiseled a few times over the course of the year. To deal with some significant challenges in their lives. But more importantly to be available, to chisel all the other guys as you're meeting weekend and week out. Chiseling is because it is going to become the major component of what you do as a tribe. And you really just need some time during that first year to get good at it. You need to develop your chiseling muscles to kind of feel out the rhythm of how to do it. What kinds of questions to be able to ask? What kinds of questions to be able to ask each guy individually? How is Joe going to respond differently to this type of question than Mike would. You'd need to just kind of learn those rhythms as a group and begin to understand one another, get to know one another stories, get a feel for how to do this. Well. And perhaps most importantly in the chisel process really learn how to listen to the voice of God. I spent a whole episode. Last episode, talking all about that. But it's something that you're just going to develop over time. It's a skill and you need to practice it. The more practice that you get with it, the better you're going to become at it. Some guys in your group might be naturally kind of better at listening to the voice of God, than others. Some might already be coming into the group with some experience doing that. Most guys probably are going to come into your tribe with zero experience doing that. And that's totally okay. But that's why you need time to develop that skill and to get better at listening to the voice of God. So for that first year, just stick to the fundamentals, right? This is 1 0 1 of tribe, just like you would have 1 0 1 of playing basketball or learning the piano or any other new thing that you would do. You need to stick with the fundamentals for a little while, until you really kind of have them second nature and can really begin to understand how this works together as a group. But during that first year, go on those two to three adventures, make them really fun, make them something that your tribe is absolutely looking forward to. And that can really be. A continued motivating factor for guys to hang in there when maybe the chiseling and the challenging can feel a little tough or even a little monotonous. The adventurous can feel super fun and give guys a reason to stick around because they want to be part of the next thing. Now, once you get past year one, and once you've really kind of got that standard rhythm under your belt. Then I would say to you as a tribe, just like you've been trying to do all during that first year, I would say follow the king. Talk to Jesus about what you need to be doing as a tribe. Now, I would say you need to stick with the rhythm, but you might want to give it some flexibility in order to be able to make the most of it. So, what do I mean by that? You might want to, uh, shift your chiseling to, instead of just being about whatever a guy wants to talk about that particular night. To maybe having a theme or a topic that all of you are going to chisel around for the next several months. Let's say it's finances. Or maybe if all the guys in your group are married, you're going to spend some time talking about your marriages or maybe for every guy in the group, you're going to talk about sexuality and the way that each guy is dealing with his own temptations, lust, how he's using his sexuality, how he's not using his sexuality, how he could grow in that area. All of that is ripe room for. Chiseling. And it may not be something that you have immediately gotten to, but that's okay. And that first year there's lots of things to talk about, but as you move deeper into that relationship with each other now is the time to begin to say, what's unpack some of these hard things in our lives. Maybe we've been a little tentative to bring those kinds of things up. Maybe it just hasn't been the thing that's been most on the surface that's needed addressing in our lives, but for whatever reason, these big categories are things that all guys need to deal with. So just start looking at that and saying, how can we chisel around those things? And maybe even, how can we build our manhood challenges around some of those things as well. If you want to talk about finances, there might be all kinds of skill challenges that guys need to pursue. To be able to develop their skills as it relates to finances, it could be managing your day-to-day personal finances. It could be planning for retirement. It could be looking at investments or stocks or you name it. There's all kinds of skills to learn. And those areas that can make for great manhood challenges alongside the chiseling that you're doing. So dive into an area like that for a while. You don't just have to do that once, but you could do it for the next six months and really make this season of your tribe about that thing. And it gives you a long range and ramp to be able to kind of work on something without the pressure of having to figure out what are we going to do next time we get together. You kind of already got an idea. You've already got a plan. You just have to stick with it. You might also want to have a season where what you're doing within your tribe is more challenged based. And I mean, manhood challenge based. Maybe you're picking some manhood challenges that are really about exposing some of the more difficult or insecure places in your life, the places where you feel particularly vulnerable and know that you need to grow as a man. So you're building some challenges around those things, but then also chiseling as it relates to why did you need to build a challenge around that particular area? Why is it that you're so afraid to talk to the auto mechanic? When you go to have your oil checked, or, you know, why is it that anytime you go into a hospital or a doctor's office, you get super anxious and nervous. What's that about? Like, these might be things that you need to both develop some challenges around, but also do some chiseling with, so pick a season where you're, you're kind of basing what you're doing and tribe around your manhood challenges and some skills that you need to grow in, in those ways. You might also want to have a season where you just address the major hurdles in your life. My tribe has been together now for over five years. And I will say that for the past, nearly year, we have spent time trying to just address the things that keep coming up in each of our lives. So now that we've been together for as long as we have, we kind of all know like, Hey, I keep hearing you over the course of time. Talk about your marriage. Like this continues to be a real sticking point for you and your wife, or I keep hearing you talk about your career. Like every couple years you're wanting to change jobs. There's things going on there that just. Kind of constantly seem like a source of frustration. Maybe it's time that we do some real long-winded chiseling as it relates to these major obstacles in our lives. These things that kind of are chronic problems that keep surfacing no matter what the situation and the circumstances look like. These are places where we continue to kind of circle back around to pain points and problems. So we have been for the last year or so, really just kind of diving into those things, wanting to say that. If we get five more years down the road and we haven't made real progress in these areas, then what are we doing as a tribe? How are we helping each other actually transform into the best versions of ourselves? So let's tackle it. Let's take those things head on and say, Hey, within a year, can we really make some progress here? Can we make some gains in these areas that are really, really difficult, but we've had to set aside a season where we're saying, we're just going to focus on those things. So as other. Other things come up. We have opportunities to kind of talk about them, but that's not what we're chiseling on because we're focusing on these kind of deeper rooted issues that really need to see some progress get made. Now. With all of those things. It can get really heavy. The chiseling can get difficult. The topics can get intense. The weightiness of things that you're dealing with can be emotional, can just be hard. And you might come away from a night of chiseling feeling like. Man. That was really good. That was really powerful, but also. I'm kind of exhausted. This is getting to be like really intense work. And that's both a really good sign that change and transformation is starting to happen. But it's also a sign that guys in the tribe can get burnt out. It can become something that starts to feel more like a burden than it feels like a joy. And when that's the case, it's time to just take a break. You need a break. So with all things in life, tribe is no exception. It's not a bad idea to alternate between seasons of low intensity and high intensity. So when you're going through a season of high intensity, kind of like the one I just described. It's not a bad idea to make sure that you're planning some really great adventures. To help break up the, that season of high intensity. To just give some time to let the steam off a little bit to just relax, release. Cut loose, have fun. Be stupid and ridiculous together. Just enjoy being guys do some things that you all will really look forward to doing, and that will help keep guys motivated through the chiseling in order to be able to get to some things that they know are going to be really fun and that they want to do together with each other. These are the guys that you're most going to want to spend some time with, but if you're not spending some time together, that is really fun. That helps you get away. That helps you push aside some of the heavy things that you're dealing with, then it's just going to be all. All work and no joy, and none of us guys need more of that in our lives. We need some fun, we need some freedom. We need some life and some joy and some laughter and you need to build that into your tribe rhythm as well. Now, with all that being said, There's lots and lots of things that you can do. What I hope I'm painting the picture of, especially for some of you guys that might be used to doing something like a church men's group. Is that you won't ever need a curriculum for what you do in tribe? You are never going to be dependent on someone else telling you here's what you need to do in your group next week. You always will have the options of following the tribe method. Using that as your rhythm and just basing what you're doing on the needs of the men in your tribe and what you sense king Jesus is leading you to do. Just ask him, Jesus, what do we need to focus on during this season? And let him speak to you. Let him tell you, what are the things that your tribe needs to address? I guarantee he will be clear with you because he wants to see you grow and transform as much as you do. Okay. With all of that being said, you've got a lifetime of joy and growth ahead of you by being a part of a tribe. It will change you in ways that you can't possibly imagine. What you think of right now as the best version of yourself? It's actually going to end up paling in comparison to what you can become through the efforts of your tribe. And so I want to encourage you. This is worth it. This work of building these kinds of friendships of bringing these men together around you, of putting in the effort of chiseling of challenging of going on adventures together. It is going to be worth it. But it is going to be some work. So I want to encourage you to be willing to put in the work. And to that end, I want to let you know that I am actively developing a resource that is going to help you as men be able to launch your own tribe. If that's something that you want to do. But I really want this to be a resource that is going to be helpful for you and is based off of your feedback and what are the things that you would need the most help on. So I'm trying to get some feedback from guys who might be interested in that, who would say. Yeah, I hear all this stuff about tribe. And I think I want that. I want to be a part of that, but you would also be willing to kind of give some feedback about what would be most helpful for you. If that's you, I would love for you to go to manhood tribes.com/launch. And on that page, you'll find a place to be able to put your name on a list where I can get in touch with you about the launch of this resource and how you can give some feedback to help me make it the best possible resource. It can be. So go to manhood tribes.com/launch, and add your name to the list. And I'll be. in touch with you soon about the kind of feedback that I need to get from you. Okay guys, this wraps up our series on how to build close friends and I hope it has been an encouragement to you. I hope it has been a help to you. And I also hope it has wet your appetite for wanting to build these kinds of friendships into your lives because you see what a value they are and how necessary they are for you to become the kind of man that you want to be. I look forward to talking to you. more about that next time here on the manhood trap show. We'll see you then.